XII. TO SLEEP. SOFT embalmer of the still midnight! Enshaded in forgetfulness divine; O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close, Then save me, or the passed day will shine Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul. 1819. FA XIII. ON FAME. NAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy To those who woo her with too slavish knees, But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy, And dotes the more upon a heart at ease. She is a Gipsey, will not speak to those Who have not learnt to be content without her; AJilt, whose ear was never whisper'd close, Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her; A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born, Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar, Ye lovesick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn XIV. ON FAME. "You cannot eat your cake and have it too."- Proverb. QW fever'd is the man, who cannot look HUpon his mortal days with temperate blood, Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book, Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom; Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom, But the rose leaves herself upon the brier, For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed, And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire, The undisturbed lake has crystal space : Why then should man, teasing the world for grace, Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed? 1819. WE XV. HY did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell; No God, no Demon of severe response, Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell: Then to my human heart I turn at once. Heart! Thou and I are here sad and alone; I say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain! O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan, To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain. Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease, My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads; Yet would I on this very midnight cease, And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds; Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed, But Death intenser ·Death is Life's high meed. A XVI. ON A DREAM. S Hermes once took to his feathers light, When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and slept, So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright, So play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies, Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day, But to that second circle of sad Hell, Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw Of rain and hailstones, lovers need not tell Their sorrows: pale were the sweet lips I saw, Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form I floated with, about that melancholy storm. 1819. XVII. F I be chain'd, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress Than Midas of his coinage, let us be Jealous of dead leaves in the bay-wreath crown So, if we may not let the Muse be free, She will be bound with garlands of her own. 1819. XVIII. HE day is gone, and all its sweets are gone! T Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast, Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone, Bright eyes, accomplish'd shape, and lang❜rous waist! Faded the flower and all its budded charms, or holinight- One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love, Unmask'd, and being seen without a blot! O! let me have thee whole, - all— all — be mine! That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest Of love, your kiss, — those hands, those eyes divine, That warm, white, lucent,. million-pleasured Yourself- your soul in pity give me all, Life's purposes the palate of my mind XX. KEATS'S LAST SONNET. RIGHT star would I were steadfast as thou art! Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night, Of snow upon the mountains and the moors: Awake forever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, Another reading: Half-passionless, and so swoon on to death. THE END. |